The Wilder World

by Jeff Hook

  The Lapine swiped with both crutches, knocking Karugo’s feet out from under him. The move also unbalanced H’raldri, so he teleported higher in the air, a couple yards away, to give himself time to right himself and land as gracefully as he could while holding two crutches and without a working right leg.

  The Lapine transferred a crutch back to his left armpit and moved over to a rack with several shurikens. Three were missing.

  “You really should get to a doctor to treat the bleeding and intestinal damage. My potions are powerful but only for emergencies. Also, I’m out.”

  Hishano lifted his shirt to look at his belly. The long jagged scar from where he’d freed himself from the sword was still there, but the shuriken wounds had almost completely healed already. “I’ll be fine.”

  H’raldri’s big fluffy ears perked up and he teleported, crutches and all, to right beside Hishano. He stared at the relatively smooth stomach. “A healer… and one who has seen combat… yes, very intense sword combat. You...” His big eyes brightened, and excitement seemed to completely overwhelm his fear for a moment. “With your help, I’ll be making good potions again in no time. My debts will be paid.”

  “Debts?” asked Hishano. He’d never heard the word before.

  “Don’t you worry,” H’raldri said in a high, quivering voice that he probably meant to be reassuring. “I have cash on hand. I’m a liquid Lapine. You’ll get paid for the ingredients.”

  “What’s a debt?” asked Hishano again. “Is this one of those money things?”

  “Is that really a question?” asked H’raldri. “A debt is when a Knyn finds someone in trouble and offers to help by providing money, but then you have to pay them back with five times as much money.”

  Hishano considered it for a second. “So, it’s as if you’re hungry and I give you an apple. Then when we get back home I demand five apples.”

  “Exactly.”

  “That’s not very neighborly.”

  “Couldn’t you just stab them?” asked Karugo thoughtfully. “The Knyn sound evil, and it’s okay to stab evil people. Like when Hishano stabbed the pirate.”

  “I can stab anyone to death, cat or human, but I can’t stab a commercial empire. If I killed the Knyn, my people would pay… either by giving me up, or suffering attack after expensive attack. We’d win, because we are Lapine, but at great cost. A bit of direct damage to our warren, but mostly from getting cut off from trading routes. We don’t want to end up like the Baltese, so Lapine and Knyn have learned to co-exist.”

  H’raldri teleported back to his desk, setting the crutches aside as he sat. His left foot twitched uncontrollably, tapping the ground in uneven rhythms, and his hands busied themselves with books and ledgers.

  “You,” he said, pointing to Karugo. “What’s your power?”

  “Fire,” said Karugo, lighting up his fist. “What’s yours?”

  “Don’t do that in here!” yelled H’raldri. “Do you not see the wooden rafters? The wooden table? The many potions, any of which could be flammable?”

  “Fine.” Karugo turned off his fire and Hishano found that it took a second for his eyes to adjust back to the relative darkness. “What’s your power?”

  “Did you not see me teleporting? I’m a Lapine. We’re ninjas. We gain our skills through intense training and our ninja blood, not random lottery like humans.”

  “Like we’re supposed to know that,” muttered Karugo.

  “Yes, you are supposed to know that. You don’t know about debt, you don’t know about Lapine, and I wasn’t going to say anything, but you’re both green. Where the hop did you… you know what? I don’t care. You have useful powers, you’re going to fetch me ingredients, and I don’t care where you come from. Such is the power of commerce. Now let’s talk about those ingredients…

  “The first one you’ll want is Haverwort. It grows up on the lower reaches of the mountain, near the river banks. Yellow flower, looks kind of like this.” H’raldri held up a book open to a page showing a flower with five petals, each of which was shaped like a crescent moon. “I need three of them right now, but I’ll take up to ten. A mezcop each.”

  Hishano was excited by the idea of ten mezcop. It was three mezcop per night at Seth’s, so they’d have seven mezcop left over to go toward the boat fare. “We can do that,” he said confidently. “You said the first one, so the second one is…”

  “The second one… you know what, let’s not overwhelm you or get you killed. I’ll be busy all tomorrow if you can get me ten Haverwort, but if you get the Haverwort and die trying to get the second ingredient, nobody benefits.”

  Ten mezcop, plus whatever Ishū would bring in, was plenty for a day’s work. “How do we get there?”

  H’raldri spread a map on his table and pointed to a place near the center of the island, where the river and mountain met. “The river is a half mile north of town. If you walk along it toward the mountain you’ll eventually start seeing what you need.”

  “Got it.” This was going to be pretty easy. They were well on their way to getting money and saving Tandoku Island.

  “Just don’t die out there, okay?”

  “We won’t,” said Hishano.

  “Yeah,” said H’raldri. “I’ve heard that before.”

  6

  Island Animals

  Karugo plunged his face into the river, bringing himself three different kinds of joy. It wiped away the heat of the day and the sweat built up from hiking into town and then back out. It quenched his thirst, a strange phenomenon which he hadn’t experienced before leaving Tandoku Island, at least not to this degree. They hadn’t thought to carry any water with them into the city, and Havlam Town didn’t have any of the usual Tandoku affordances. Finally, it was just fun, and there were no Elders around to tell him to stop. After he was done dunking his face he pulled back and leapt in backward, making a huge splash.

  “Don’t do that!” said Hishano. “Those are Farmer Seth’s clothes.”

  Well, there was one mini-Elder. He’d thought they’d come to an understanding, and Hishano had been amusingly impulsive during their conversation with the awesome Lapine, but old habits kept coming back. Still, now that Karugo knew that Hishano thought he was helping it did lessen the sting a bit.

  “Don’t worry about it. We’re going to get ten mezcops when we complete this mission. Ten mezcops! Do you know how much that is?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No,” Karugo admitted. “But it’s enough for us all to stay at Farmer Seth’s for three nights, then have enough left over for a bowl of soup. Surely that’s enough to cover hanging up clothes to dry. Besides, if that Lapine is right, we’ll have a lot more troubles than just being wet.”

  Karugo grinned in anticipation, but Hishano for some reason looked anxious. Why did he have to be like that? Hishano was the one who could heal, so he should be even more excited for danger. Maybe it was because the challenge wasn’t great enough? “We should get going,” said Hishano. “We want ten Haverwort. If we come back early enough, he might tell us what the next mission is.”

  That made sense. Karugo swam-walked to the shore, his feet barely touching the rocky bottom most of the way. He could tell they were about to hit when the spongy weeds got thicker and less flexible. “Okay, let’s go!”

  The sun was halfway up into the sky. Hishano trudged forward along the river’s grassy banks while Karugo skipped. They were going on an adventure! Hishano was probably mad that they were skipping the same boring lessons they did every day in school.

  Birds chirped differently here. Karugo tried to find them to take a look at them — once again, there were no Elders to tell him no — but whenever he climbed a tree to get closer they flew off. The chirping changed once again as they got further up the river. Was it the location or the time of day that made them change?

  Hishano slapped a warning hand against Karugo’s chest. Karugo almost brushed past his friend’s warning, but then he saw it. A strange legless
tubular creature slithered on the ground in front of them, scaly and green, almost blending in. It hissed at them and shook two of its three tails. He’d never seen anything like the creature, but he instinctively felt fear, as if some long-forgotten ancestor had grabbed at his throat and made it constrict.

  They stared each other down for a few moments before the creature slithered off. It wrapped itself around a tree and seemed to spiral up the trunk. Then it swung from a branch using one of its tails and then pushed off with another, sending it flying. The third tail caught on the branch of a different tree, and the snake quickly spiraled its way along that one.

  “This is dangerous territory,” said Hishano. “We must be cautious.”

  For once, Karugo had no complaint. “I wish Ishū were here. He would be able to talk to that thing and find out what it wanted.” Then again, Ishū hadn’t been able to do anything about the moltfryn except lie on the ground and quiver. Maybe it was better to tackle this alone.

  They kept moving upriver, on alert for anything out of the ordinary… but ordinary had shifted so far that Karugo had a hard time keeping up. The giant grey boulder he saw was just like the ones that surrounded the town. Was that normal? What about the frog beside it that had its entire five-foot tongue laid out on the ground in a straight line in front of it?

  The tongue was a mottled green and brown, almost blending into the ground cover. An unfortunate insect wandered onto it and the tongue rolled up in a snap, turning what had once been a free insect into dinner. The frog’s enormous stretchy mouth expanded to its full size in order to accommodate both tongue and insect. Once dinner was firmly trapped, the frog let most of its tongue hang out so it had room to squish and chew.

  “Cool,” said Karugo, watching the frog work.

  “Let’s hope there’s nothing similar that’s human-sized,” said Hishano.

  “That one could probably take off a foot.”

  “Not without injuring itself.”

  “Then what happens if something larger steps onto the tongue? Does it just let the tongue get squished?”

  Hishano grimaced. “Let’s not find out.”

  Once again, Karugo didn’t argue. Hishano’s protectiveness was kind of useful when there were actual dangers present. At least it was much better than when Karugo had been treated as the danger.

  They moved forward and eventually forgot much of the danger, lost in the strangeness of the forest. Karugo marveled at the wild untamed trees; everything on Tandoku Island was made for perfect harmony with humanity — otherwise the island couldn’t support the population that it did — but these trees had a logic all their own, practically untouched by human planning. Roots twisted every which way. Branches competed to grab light from the sun. There was a sunny strip along the river where trees couldn’t reach that seemed to shrink the farther upriver they went. And they were going up, slowly but steadily.

  Eventually, at about midday, the trees started thinning again. Instead of shade, there were meadows… and Haverwort. Not just two or three plants, but a whole field of them.

  They each picked ten, then met up and realized their mistake, but decided there was no harm in it. Worst case they only sold half of them, and it wasn’t as if they were running out of plants to pick.

  “Don’t catch them on fire and we’ll be fine,” said Hishano with a grin as they stuffed flowers in their pockets. Was that a joke? From Hishano? Not a good joke, but still… it must be a good day.

  They were laughing and jubilant on the way back. Karugo skipped and Hishano didn’t stop him. They completely forget the hazards of the forest… until they accidentally tripped over something even more dangerous than the animals they’d seen so far.

  ——

  The growling, slobbering mass of muscles and rainbow fur bared its teeth. Hishano should have known better than to lighten up even for a second! Even though the other animals had been fascinating, he’d smartly kept himself and Karugo from accidentally triggering them, because there was no knowing how things in this strange world would react. Pirates, Knyn, Lapine, and now these strange animals… it was best to get in quickly, save the world, and get out back to the island before they were entangled any further.

  Everything else in the woods so far had been trying in its own way to blend in. The snake wanted to appear like a branch swaying in the wind. The frog wanted to appear like the ground. This wolf-like creature, however… the ears were neon blue, the snout a bright red and orange. The fur was a grey base, but laced with green and orange stripes.

  Wolves on Tandoku Island were only aggressive toward elk and tended to hide from humans. They kept the balance in the hinterlands where farming was not viable. This wolf, on the other hand, was not hiding. It snarled, oversized teeth snapping; was this what wolves all looked like before they’d been put into harmony?

  “I knew we shouldn’t have stepped on the rainbow patch,” said Karugo.

  “You saw it before we stepped on it?”

  “How could you not?”

  “I was looking into the trees…”

  “It just looked so interesting, and it wasn’t a snapping frog, so I figured why not.”

  Hishano sighed.

  The growling thing’s head came up to their chests. Hishano dropped down into a defensive crouch so he could see it face to face and try to figure out what it was thinking. The strange colors were mesmerizing, and if it weren’t for the teeth and guttural growl he could’ve stared at it all day.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw another wolf, this one more lean and with a more normal coat, grey hair with neon-blue tips on the ears and back. It rubbed up against the growling beast, purring, and then fixed an eye on Hishano. A female wolf? The colorful wolf’s stance changed slowly into something more relaxed.

  Were they coming to an understanding?

  Little pups, barely up to Hishano’s knee, peeked out from behind a bush. They had kids nearby! No wonder the wolf had been defensive. Hishano tried to look as unthreatening as possible.

  Karugo ran toward the pups, yelling happily about puppies and quickly undoing all of the trust that Hishano had been trying to build.

  “Stop!” he yelled, but Karugo didn’t listen.

  The female wolf bolted toward Karugo, and the colorful male started growling again.

  “Stop? Don’t you mean run?”

  “I do now! Toward town!”

  They ran as fast as they could along the river and Hishano was glad they were running at a slight downslope. Then again, that let the wolves pick up speed as well. All of them hurtled downhill, barely getting a chance to see where their next step would land them.

  “I bet we could win if we fought!” yelled Karugo as they ducked to avoid an overhanging branch.

  “Maybe!” panted Hishano. He could heal, but he still ran out of breath the same as anyone else. More so, since he’d never practiced running or doing anything more strenuous than light calisthenics with his body. “But what if we’re wrong? You could get hurt and we could lose flowers.”

  Karugo put on a burst of speed and, as if on cue, a flower fell out of his pocket and fluttered away. Hishano tried to catch it, but it whooshed on by and he definitely wasn’t going to turn around.

  It was okay. They could lose nine more and still get their ten mezcops.

  But they were starting to get tired and slow and the wolves looked as if they were doing fine. They needed a strategy besides just running. Would they really have to fight?

  He could heal. If they fought, he would be the front line, and Karugo would stay back until the wolves decided to stop attacking. That would work. Probably.

  And there it was. The grey boulder, sides slick enough that a four-legged animal like a wolf couldn’t climb it well.

  “Get on the rock!” Hishano yelled. “We’ll catch our breath and figure something out.”

  Karugo sprinted toward the rock and leapt up, scrambling to the top.

  Hishano turned to the wolves and was almost immediat
ely knocked over by the smaller female wolf. It growled and snapped at him, only missing his throat because he blocked it with his arm.

  His forearm came out of it crushed and useless, and the thing’s weight was greater than he expected. This wasn’t even the larger wolf! The fight was not going well.

  He kicked out in a panic, unbalancing the wolf and pushing it away from him. He then scrambled backward, trying to get away from the large teeth and sour breath that followed him.

  Already his forearm was starting to knit itself back together, but he didn’t trust it with any weight yet. He would have to finish this with only three limbs… assuming the wolf didn’t snap its jaws on any more. Along the ground where he’d been he saw a trail of Haverwort flowers. No! Their precious world-saving money!

  The female wolf caught up, her mouth now covered in spit and saliva and blood. She pounced on his leg and attacked.

  7

  A Simple Life

  Ishū was ecstatic at the number of animals on the farm. None of them were as smart as the dolphins or the mass of jelly-creatures, but they all had their own funny rhythms and quirks.

  The first he interacted with was one called Alfalfa. It was kind of like a thunderbeast, but it was missing so much. The only spikes it had left were on either side of its head, and the only remnant of the thick, magnificent thunderbeast tail was a tiny, stringy, hairy little thing. Instead of scales it had short fuzzy hair. It didn’t have the majestic stride of a thunderbeast, but instead plodded down the row on relatively skinny legs. Ishū almost felt sorry for it, but the animal didn’t seem to know that anything was missing. When working, it pulled a huge wooden blade behind it in order to till the fields; it spent the rest of its time chomping on grass.

  Alfalfa spoke well of Seth, which made Ishū happy. He hoped his thunderbeast would speak equally well of him if he got another chance to talk to it.